Chapter 2 #3
They followed the instructions to the flight of stairs that led them to the second floor. Well, Archer followed her instructions, dragging Mac and their backpacks with them. The metal stairs creaked beneath their boots, a tired warning groaning through the empty halls.
“How much did this room cost us? Whatever it was, it was too much,” Mac said, glancing warily at the darkened windows with their dusty shades and suspiciously shredded screens.
“Did you hear anything that happened there, darling?”
Mac gave a dull shake of his head, then a full body shudder. “Sorry, Katniss, I was a little preoccupied.”
“With what?” Archer prodded, wanting to shake him and scream ‘what did you see?’ like he was Brad Pitt in the movie Seven.
He turned the key in the lock, noting that someone had painted the door red with a green bow so the door looked like a decaying Christmas present. It even had a sprig of holly. Yeah, that tracked.
This place was a nightmare. A festive, glitter-coated, candy-cane-scented nightmare.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mac said, following Archer past the threshold.
Archer heaved a sigh, then flipped the light switch, gasping dramatically, as the room sprang to life. They’d thought the town was bad; this room was quantifiably worse. They stared, both too stunned to speak, taking in the festive horror show posing as interior décor.
A massive Santa portrait hung directly over the four-poster bed, its too-rosy cheeks and glassy eyes painted with such unnerving realism it felt like he was breathing. He somehow glowed even though there were no lights present.
The bed itself was draped in a heavy quilt embroidered with a huge reindeer whose proportions were just…
wrong—its eyes red-stitched, its grin too wide, its hooves curling like claws.
Dusty tinsel and old string lights choked the bedposts, the bulbs casting a sickly flicker across the room.
The flicker didn’t so much illuminate as haunt, every shadow stretching just a little too long.
On the dresser, a fully automated Christmas village chugged to life, tiny Victorian skaters gliding endlessly around a mirrored pond—except one had tipped over and was now being dragged face-down by her partner, scraping along the ice in a loop of mechanical misery.
Her tiny squeaking motor made a sound like a dying mouse, which absolutely did not help.
But none of that compared to the corner by the window, where four life-sized Victorian carolers stood arranged in a perfect semicircle, porcelain faces smiling wide, eyes bright and dead all at once.
Just when he thought it couldn’t get worse, they appeared to come to life, winding up with a horrific whine before belting out Jingle Bells in a high shrill child-like chorus.
Archer couldn’t stop himself from muttering, “Oh, sweet bloody hell.”
But Mac didn’t make a sound—he went statue-still, just like in the lobby, the color draining from his face as he stared on in what Archer could only describe as unbridled terror. It was the look of a man who had seen combat, death, disaster… and decided this was worse.
He didn’t move for a full minute. He was so still that when he snapped back to life, Archer jolted with surprise. Mac was now shaking his head back and forth.
“Nope. No. No. Just no. I can’t—I can’t do it.
I can’t. I don’t…I don’t do…I don’t do dolls.
Not those dolls. Not any dolls. Especially not singing dolls.
Carolers. I’ll sleep in the car. Hell, I’ll sleep in the snowbank.
Fuck it, I don’t care. What’s a little frostbite? How important are toes really?”
Archer could only stare as his afraid-of-nothing husband rapidly unraveled in the presence of plastic animatronic Christmas decor. “Babe?”
Mac shook his head. “It’s like their eyes are following me.
I gotta get out of here, Katniss. I’m not cut out for this.
Bombs, guns, murder, torture… teaching. No problem.
But I draw the line at four creepy life-size fucking Victorian dolls singing at me like I’ve landed in the ninth fucking circle of hell. ”
When Archer just blinked at him in shock, Mac continued his rambling.
“No. It’s not right. They’re not right. I can deal with Santa and weird little pointy-eared elves and this freakishly Willy Wonka mismatched striped wallpaper but I cannot—No, I will not—sleep in a room where I’m being stared at by those… things.”
To prove his point, Mac took a stumbling step backward, hand clutched dramatically to his chest like a Regency widow discovering her husband’s gambling debts.
Meanwhile, the carolers hit the word ‘HEY!’ with bloodthirsty enthusiasm, all four porcelain heads jerking forward in unison.
Archer couldn’t even blame him. If the room had offered a trapdoor exit, he would’ve used it first.
He had never seen his husband this unglued before.
He needed to get those dolls out of there.
Or get them out of there. But if he requested a new room, they might take offense and, as a professional gambler, he was certain there was at least a seventy percent chance that—should Ma & Pa Christmas be offended—they would sneak into their room and dismember them in their sleep. Frankly, those odds felt generous.
“Do you have to pee?” Archer asked suddenly.
That seemed to jar Mac enough to pull him from his downward spiral. “Huh?”
“Pee? Urinate? Empty your bladder? Tinkle? Do you need to go? If you do, do it now.”
Mac frowned, but Archer held up his hand. “Do not ask questions. Go pee. Then stand outside in the hallway until I say.”
Mac did as he was told, then stumbled from the bathroom with a haunted look. Archer didn’t ask what he’d seen. He’d know soon enough. As soon as he was out of the room, Archer got to work.
He started by flipping the quilt to the less terrifying side.
He unplugged the village, righted the skater, twisted the tiny figurine so she was facing away from the bed—just in case, put a towel over the looming Santa picture, then took each Victorian caroler and stuffed them behind the shower curtain in the bathroom.
Moving each one was his own personal nightmare, half afraid he’d feel teeth sink into his neck as they came to life in his arms.
Once they were all in, he dusted off his hands, feeling a bit steadier. It was a tight fit but hopefully out of sight, out of mind. It was only a few hours after all.
He laid out their sleeping bag across the bed for good measure.
He honestly didn’t want any part of him or Mac touching the fabric beneath them.
He would sacrifice the sleeping bag if he had to.
The mattress looked like it had absorbed at least forty years of peppermint-scented trauma.
When he decided the room was now suitable for all ages, he flung the door open.
“Ta-da.”
Mac crept back in the room, eyes narrowed as he searched the space for any other Christmas horrors that might be lurking. Archer considered it a good sign when Mac’s shoulders sagged.
“Better?” Archer asked. “I—”
Instead of answering, Mac shoved him against the wall hard enough to drag a pained, “oof,” from him and rattle the door in its frame.
Before Archer could right himself, Mac’s mouth crashed into his.
Right away, it was all teeth and hunger and too much tongue.
Archer grimaced from the hit, but not the feel of his husband plundering his lips.
He wrapped his arms around Mac’s neck, letting him take the lead as he mapped every ridge and groove of his teeth.
Mac kissed him like he was reclaiming territory, all heat and adrenaline and leftover terror channeled directly into Archer’s mouth.
Archer felt the shiver roll through him—half arousal, half relief that Mac’s brain was finally rebooting.
Clearly his husband had an inappropriate fear response. Archer wasn’t complaining. This seemed like as good a way as any to pass the time.
Archer tore his mouth away. “Are you sure you’re good?”
Mac pressed his lips to Archer’s cheek. “So I’ve been told.”
Archer rolled his eyes, but didn’t push him away, just let him keep exploring the skin of his jaw, then lower to his throat. Mac’s breath was still uneven, warm puffs ghosting across Archer’s neck as if he was trying to ground himself there.
“Hardy-har-har,” Archer said softly. “Are you trying to distract me from asking the origin story of your terror surrounding Victorian dolls?”
They were both a little out of breath. “Carolers. Not dolls. Carolers. I’ll blow you if you promise to just never bring it up. Ever.”
“You’ll blow me anyway. How about we make a deal?
You suck me off without forcing me to touch that mattress and I promise not to ask about your carolers until we are far from this place.
As an added bonus, I will call my father and ask him to get us the fuck out of here and hire someone else to retrieve the car? ”
Mac paused only long enough for his pupils to blow wide in interest—fear apparently no match for sex and an exit strategy.
Mac bit Archer’s lower lip, then kissed him again a little slower. “Deal.”
Archer fell back into it enjoying the slide of Mac’s lips over his, his soft tongue teasing his own.
A contented sigh escaped as he let Mac do as he liked, exploring his jaw, his ear, just below it.
He tangled his fingers into his auburn hair, not guiding, just grounding, perfectly content to just do this.
Mac slid to his knees, tugging down the zipper.
His eyes slid shut as Mac freed his cock from the confines of jeans that were starting to feel a little too tight.
Mac’s mouth closed around Archer’s half-hard cock, swallowing him down.
He groaned deep in his chest, the sound dragging out like a warning as his head once more thudded against the wall.
Mac hollowed his cheeks, sucking in a way that had Archer’s eyes rolling behind closed lids, his mouth going dry. “Oh, fuck.”